Designed to help you maximise your enjoyment of our programme, we would like to introduce our 2007 Festival Pass alongside the new ‘If you like this, then try:’ format. Other new offerings include a slice of the experimental in ‘Twisted Cornea ’, a focus on the local talent of the renowned Seamus McGarvey, Director’s Retrospectives, and our extended Festival Club, at the hottest new venue in town, the Black Box.

A huge thanks to our regular partners and sponsors, our juries, venues and core funders - NI Film & Television Commission and Belfast City Council. We are delighted and proud to welcome Mark Cousins to our board of Directors. In addition we would like to thank and extend a warm welcome to our new title sponsor Jameson Irish Whiskey.

So whether you’re a loyal fan or a new audience member we offer you our most exciting programme to date. From Japan to Austria - Iceland to India, join us as we shake off the winter blues, greet the spring and embrace the best of new independent cinema from across the globe.

Michele Devlin
FESTIVAL DIRECTOR

The Belfast Film Festival originated in August 1995 as part
of feile an Phobail (West Belfast Community Festival). After
five years of rapid development we moved to city centre
premises in 2000 and expanded to a range of venues
throughout the city. The festival’s growth has continued with audience levels increasing on average 35% annually over the past 5 years.

Belfast Film festival has been at the forefront in championing cultural film exhibition in Northern Ireland. The festival is now one of the key annual events in the city. After a serious setback in 2004 when fire totally destroyed our offices, 2005 saw the festival’s most major development to date. With new capital investment from European Union, Department of Social Development and Arts Council NI we moved to our new offices in the Cathedral Quarter and launched our Studio Cinema a 50 seater digital screening room.

Belfast Film Festival is unique in that it is the only festival
which has a defined ‘socio-political’ focus on films
complemented by a commitment to bring the best of new
international documentaries to Ireland in our Maysles
Documentary Competition. Each year a range of films,
speakers and seminars focussing on a selected theme
provides a platform for debate and enagagement between
diverse section of the audience.

Themes to date have included Reconciliation and Divided
Societies; Ulster Protestant Identity on Film; Irish Women
Film-makers; Human Rights and Film; Racism, Community
and Film and in 2007 Societies in Transition: Policing for the People.